Pat Cahill: Edinburgh Fringe 2017 interview

A must-see at every Fringe now, Pat Cahill is Simon Munnery’s rightful heir to the crown for absurd, playful philosophizing, pushing comedy to its silliest limits.

Hello. How are you today?

It’s finally raining, I just saw a mouse in my shoe.

At this stage, how closely does your programme blurb match the content of your show?

For once its quite relevant, I gave myself a theme and stuck rigidly to it so it all sort of makes sense. (Watch the show and you’ll see that’s a real, chunky lie).

Have the momentous events of 2016 affected your act in any way?

I got married for love and in order to get loads of passports and for love. I don’t mention this in the show for fear of being deported back to Norton St-Bendare.

Who are you sharing a flat with this festival and how will you help each other survive the month?

John Kearns and Lloyd Griffiths are full fringe my bunk ups. I aim to sneak up and tickle Johnny at least twice daily and watch him as he dries off in his towel. (He never rub dries, he just wanders around slowly evaporating water.) I hope to play a round of golf with Lloyd and maybe some fishing.

Any shows you’re particularly excited about seeing?

Phil Ellis’ as I’m in it as a disembodied voice, so will watch it everyday and wonder how it can change so fluidly.

Other than the great shows, what else are you looking forward to about your trip to Edinburgh this year?

Rain. We just had our first rain shower in London for a while and the smell reminded me of Edinburgh.

What celebrity death hit you the hardest in 2016 (mine was Wogan)?

In order to pick I just had a look on the Guardian website and there were about ten people I thought were still alive, so I’ll let you know when I’m feeling less sad.

Once I’ve done that I’ll move on to other tiny fish. A clean sweep of tiny records- Gudgeon, Blickling, Ruffe, Bleak, Stone Loach. If anyone’s reading this, there’s a Discovery or Quest or BBC4 show in it somewhere.